Fla. judge skeptical about prison privatization

Published: Monday, November 19, 2012 at 5:26 p.m.

Last Modified: Monday, November 19, 2012 at 5:26 p.m.

TALLAHASSEE — A skeptical judge on Monday raised questions about whether it was legal for the state to move ahead with a plan to privatize nearly 3,000 jobs in the state's prisons.

Circuit Judge John Cooper spent more than two hours Monday hearing a lawsuit from three public employee unions that challenged a move by the state's prison agency to have private companies take over prison health care operations.

Cooper did not rule from the bench, but said he needed more information before he can decide whether an obscure legislative panel had the authority to sign off on the privatization proposal in September.

That panel — known as the Legislative Budget Commission — granted the Department of Corrections permission to spend nearly $58 million to pay the private companies.

Lawyers for the unions contend that the state prison agency needed permission from the entire Legislature to embark on the privatization plan. The Legislature earlier this year narrowly rejected a proposal to privatize more than two dozen prisons in South Florida.

Alma Gonzalez, special counsel for the American Federation of State, and Municipal Employees, said after the hearing that the state could not "play it fast and loose" with the livelihoods of state workers.

Cooper said his initial reading of state law suggested that in "plain English" that the panel can tweak the existing state budget but that a "small group of legislators" cannot enact new policy.

Lawyers for the state, as well as an attorney for one of the companies seeking to take over health care services for inmates, assert that approval by the panel was legal.

AFSCME spokesman Doug Martin said the money that the DOC claims it will save from the transition is not guaranteed.

"They privatized South Florida and it was a disaster. If something has been a disaster before and the savings are questionable, then why is there such a rush to do this?" Martin asked.

Martin said he was hopeful that the deal would be reconsidered after hearing of the court's request for additional information during the Monday hearing.

"The judge asked a number of very skeptical questions about how this was handled and thankfully the judge is taking this very seriously and researching the issues thoroughly," he said.

The Monday court hearing is the last go-round over prison privatization that has been the source of ongoing friction between the administration of Gov. Rick Scott and unions.

State legislators in 2011 had approved the privatization effort but they tucked it into the overall state budget. That move sparked a court fight, but a judge this summer declared the case over because the outsourcing provision had expired at the end of the June. That's when the state's fiscal year ended.

But the Florida Department of Corrections, pointing to another section of state law, contends it can move ahead with the privatization plan without legislative approval. The agency said it only needed the approval of the budget panel in order to pay for it.

DOC officials have previously stated that if the state does not privatize its health care operations for nearly 100,000 inmates it will create a deficit in the state's prison budget of more than $60 million.

Communications Director for the Department of Corrections Ann Howard said some of the savings anticipated from the transition would come from the DOC not having to pay for equipment costs.

"They are just far better technologically advanced," Howard said of Corizon Healthcare.

Prison facilities can be found in Alachua, Union, Bradford, Levy, Dixie. Gilchrist, Columbia, Lafayette, Putnam and Suwannee counties, though not all facilities have medical staff.

DOC sent letters to employees affected by the transition. The counties and number of employees are: Bradford, 102; Union, 328; Columbia, 61; Suwannee, 122; Dixie, 18; and Gilchrist, 23.

In the state of Florida, about 2,243 employees work in prison medical facilities — about 8.5 percent of all DOC employees.

Corizon released a statement saying that typically 97 to 99 percent of the employees it hires will come from the existing workforce of the agency to which it is contracted.

Hannah O. Brown of the Gainesville Sun contributed to this report.

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